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Climate Central, an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the public, has released the Climate-Friendly Car Guide, which offers an incredibly simple to use tool to figure out the six most climate-friendly cars in your particular state.

The link to Our Research gives you an informative introduction to the reports methodology, and a nice graphical representation of the generation mix state-by-state.

DC isn’t listed, but here are the results for Virginia:

and Maryland:

You can view more cars, but keep in mind that the differences between #6 and #7 on this list is minor compared to the orders-of-magnitude difference between #6 and an ICE car.

So, thank you Climate Central for creating such an easy-to-use tool. The Union of Concerned Scientists also has a guide to help you understand the carbon impacts of electric versus gas cars, broken down by electric grid region.

has issued it’s Interim Report to Gov. Hogan outlining the current state of plug-in vehicles in Maryland, and efforts to ease their adoption. It will be discussed at the upcoming EVIC meeting March 16. See EVADC calendar for details.

The Maryland Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Council holds meetings every other month to discuss issues related to charging, legislation, incentives, funding and other EV-related matters. The meetings are open to the public and in particular those who drive Plug-In cars and thus have the most direct experience with them.

The public is invited to comment at the the beginning of each meeting. Real EV drivers have impact!

Meetings are held 2pm-4pm at the headquarters of the Maryland Department of Transportation, Harry Hughs Conference Room, 7201 Corporate Center Drive in Hanover, Maryland, near BWI airport. See EVADC Calendar for additional info and a map.

FLASH: Hearing this Thursday, 2pm in Annapolis. See below for driving instructions, etc. You can also email a letter! Send it to clarence.lam@house.state.md.us by Noon Wednesday 1/25. See below for the correct form for your letter.

Guide to Pending Anti-ICE’ing Legislation in Maryland

IF YOU DRIVE A PLUG-IN CAR AND USE PUBLIC CHARGING, THIS IS OF INTEREST TO YOU, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’VE EVER BEEN ICE’D

Announcing the First EV Group Buy Program in Virginia. 2016 Nissan LEAF is Now Available at Discounted Prices!

Deadline Jan 31, 2017

Virginia Clean Cities is pleased announce to the first EV Group Buy Program in Virginia for the 2016 Nissan LEAF. This limited time offer leverages the power of a group of consumers to negotiate a discounted price from a car dealer.

We invite you to join us in participating in this EV Group Buy Program. This is community-wide program designed to make it easier and more affordable for residents to purchase an electric vehicle.

What is a Group Buy Program?

This program will help your pool your buying power to drive electric at a discount. We can reduce the cost and complexity of going electric, increase the number of electric vehicles in our communities, decrease the amount of air pollution in our communities, and drive progress toward our region’s climate goals.

Beginning in mid-November, Virginia Clean Cities, in partnership with neighboring communities throughout Northern Virginia, is launching an EV group-purchasing program, which allows the selected EV dealership, Priority Nissan, to be able to offer more competitive pricing will also offer additional rebates for increased savings to drivers.

How You Can Help?

Just help us spread the word! Let your friends and coworkers know about EV Group Buy. It’s an easy way to show your organization’s commitment to the health and sustainability of your community!

As part of the FAST (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) Act of 2016, states were invited to designate Alternative Fuel Corridors, one type of which were EV Charging Corridors (primarily DC Fast charging along highways). Here are the resulting corridors in the mid-Atlantic:

Not surprisingly, the corridors follow most interstate highways. The solid green lines are “signage-ready” meaning a useful amount of charging already exists. Note, this is largely independent of the Tesla Supercharger Network. The dashed orange lines are terranova, in that they need basic charging infrastructure, and are thus referred to as “signage-pending”.

Department of Energy efforts meant to encourage private sector workplace charging have been bearing fruit for the past few years. This is the Workplace Charging Challenge, a component of EV Everywhere, which coordinates the overall DOE effort on electric vehicles.

Until the adoption of the FAST Act (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) in Dec 2015, appropriated funds were specifically forbidden by GSA to be usable for the purchase or installation of workplace charging for employee use in their private vehicles. The FAST Act has now removed that prohibition, meaning that workplace charging is now authorized, Continue reading →

Washington had already been the first American city to establish modern (RFID-controlled) bikesharing, which we’ve covered. Onstreet, point-to-point rental has since spread through New York City, to smaller markets, and now even Detroit, the “Motor City.” The earlier problems with public bikes have been solved; a rental is so cheap compared to other modes of transportation that cities almost can’t afford not to deploy bikes and stations. In the same manner, the early e-bikes have given way to newer, better, cheaper designs. This includes trials in Paris and in Birmingham, Alabama to evaluate electric bikesharing.

Back here, I visited Riide‘s assembly facility in northeast. In time for Halloween, Riide was moving to a new space, and throwing a costume party in the vacated industrial building. The company’s Kickstarter launch was highly successful, deliveries began in late 2014, and I’ve even seen Riides on the street. For 2016, Riide is offering a monthly $79 plan (“RiidePass”) with maintenance and insurance. At plan’s end, the bike is owned outright, or you can convert payments to the latest model.